Chicago Sun-Times - 09/12/1997
"...The kind of grimy, intense, passionate film we identify more with the 1970s than with today's slick productions..."

Chicago Sun-Times - 10/17/1997
"...BOOGIE NIGHTS has the quality of many great films, in that it always seems alive..."

Product Description:

It's Los Angeles, 1977, and adult film director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) meets Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg), a well-endowed dishwasher in a nightclub. Jack recruits Eddie to be his newest star and Eddie, hungry for fame, quickly agrees, changing his name to Dirk Diggler. Soon Dirk is the hottest star in the porn industry, alongside Rollergirl (Heather Graham), a high school dropout who never removes her roller skates, and Amber Waves (Julianne Moore), the veteran star who pines for the son she's not allowed to visit. On the fringes, Little Bill (William H. Macy) fumes while his wife cheats on him in public, and Buck Swope (Don Cheadle) tries to escape the stigma of being a porn actor. The good times roll, but before long Dirk falls victim to the pressures of stardom and a drug habit that ruins his career while Jack struggles with porn's conversion from film to cheaper videotapes. Director Paul Thomas Anderson's breakthrough film is an exhilarating ride along the underbelly of the 1970s inspired by the films of Altman and Scorsese, featuring colorful camera work, a dynamic soundtrack, and excellent performances from the entire cast, most notably Reynolds in an Oscar-nominated comeback role.

Plot Synopsis:

Director Paul Thomas Anderson's second film is a sprawling, polyphonous drama set in the seedy greater L.A. porn scene during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

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Production Notes:

BOOGIE NIGHTS premiered at the Toronto Film Festival September 11, 1997.

Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson's original screenplay for BOOGIE NIGHTS was 300 pages long, with a running time of more than five hours.

BOOGIE NIGHTS originated from a short film Anderson made as a teenager entitled THE DIRK DIGGLER STORY.

The opening sequence of the film is a continuous three-minute shot that introduces most of the main characters.

Much of Dirk Diggler's (Mark Wahlberg) character was inspired by the real-life porn actor John Holmes, including the Brock Landers films, which were based on a Holmes character, Johnny Wadd.

Anderson's first choice for the part of Dirk Diggler was Leonardo DiCaprio, who opted to star in TITANIC instead.

Don Cheadle's character, Buck Swope, was inspired by the Robert Downey, Sr., film PUTNEY SWOPE.

A scene where Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) is seen wandering through a porn warehouse was shot in an actual porn warehouse, Gourmet Video in Van Nuys, California.

The scene in which Jack Horner and Rollergirl (Heather Graham) go out with a video camera in the back of a limo looking for men off the street is based on an actual porn movie entitled ON THE PROWL.

A number of real-life adult film stars appear in BOOGIE NIGHTS, including Nina Hartley, Tony Tedeschi, Lexi Leigh, and Veronica Hart.

In the studio scene where Dirk Diggler and Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly) attempt to record an album, the song they perform is "The Touch," which is an actual song from THE TRANSFORMERS animated movie.

In the climactic scene with the firecrackers, actor Alfred Molina does not respond to the sound of the explosions because he had an earpiece feeding music directly into his ear. The reactions of the other actors are genuine.

Paul Thomas Anderson's father was Ernie Anderson, known as Ghoulardi, host of a Cleveland horror-movie program.